Valle's Steak House In Hartford Goes Out Of Business

Valle's Closes Doors

Manager Blames Weak Economy, Highway Project

Valle's Steak House, a Hartford landmark whose towering sign had beckoned motorists on I-91 for nearly three decades, served its last meal and locked its doors for good Friday night.

Its manager said the restaurant's sales had dropped off by about 50 percent over the lpast 1 1/2 years and half. He blamed both the slumping Connecticut economy and the I-91 reconstruction project, which he said made it difficult for travelers to get to the Brainard Road restaurant.

Robert Hammond, manager of the Hartford restaurant, which opened in 1964, said other restaurants in the Valle's chain, which once stretched from Maine to Florida, had been suffering as well. The company's two other remaining eateries also closed -- the one in Kittery, Maine, Thursday and the one in Andover, Mass., Friday.

The Hartford closing will put 65 people out of work. Many of them workers gathered at tables Friday night, some weeping, to mourn the loss of a restaurant they said was like a home to them and to wonder about their future job prospects.

"This was not a place where you came to work and left when you were done. People were like family," said Marija Posavac of Hartford, who came to the United States from Croatia nine years ago and whose first job in this country was at Valle's. She had been a waitress there for seven years.

Said Carol Riedel of Rocky Hill, a Valle's waitress for five years, said: "We couldn't help it. We spent Easter, Christmas, New Year's, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, every holiday together."

Riedel said that the children of many employees also ended up working at Valle's.

Adelle Hammond, who was the dining room manager and bookkeeper, said workers were so close that they called her and her husband, Robert, "Mom" and "Dad."

"This is pretty tough on everyone," Adelle Hammond she said.

Marcella Plante of Warwick, R.I., who had worked for Valle's for 10 1/2 years, 5 1/2 of them as banquet manager in Hartford, said she wondered how she would be able to continue paying a new mortgage.

And Arija Ezerins of Manchester, an employee for 22 years, said, "I don't know where else we're going to find jobs."

Several customers said they were sorry, but not completely surprised, to learn the restaurant was closing.

Bill Johnson of San Diego, who drives a tractor-trailer, truck, said he would stop at Valle's in Hartford three or four times a year. when driving through the area.

"It's too bad. It was convenient. You could get right off the highway and back on again," Johnson said.

Jeff Dounouk of Chaplin recalled growing up in Wethersfield and visiting the restaurant with his family on Sundays. When he was older, he often stopped in with friends to watch a football game.

"There were definitely a lot less people in here over the last three years or so," Dounouk said. Still, Dounouk said, he was saddened by the restaurant's closing. "It's the end of an era," he said.

Hammond would not say how much money the chain had been losing, referring questions to other company executives at their company's headquarters in Braintree, Mass. Those executives could not be reached Friday.

Hammond, however, blamed the economy and the state for damaging the restaurant's business, which mainly depended mainly on bus tours, motorists, truck drivers and families.

"A lot of it was the economy. When you take the extra spending money out of people's pockets, they don't go out to eat," Hammond said.

"It was also the construction. They closed off our exits so nobody could find us," Hammond said, referring to the state Department of Transportation highway project.

"And they wouldn't trim the trees that were covering our sign. There was no way we could keep going.," Hammond said.

William Keish, a spokesman for the DOT, declined comment Friday on the criticism.

Hammond said company officials called him Friday morning to tell him the restaurant would be closed down. He said he notified employees throughout the day.

The Hartford eatery was part of a chain started by an Italian immigrant, Donald D. Valle, that grew to include more than 30 steak houses along the East Coast.

Valle, a Newton, Mass., resident who died until his death in 1977, opened opened his first steak house in Portland, Maine, in 1933. Many of the restaurants were sold when the company started to scale back operations about nine years ago, Hammond said.